The Surgeon (36 page)

Dean Hobbs grunted. "That one's always been trouble."
"You know that kid?" asked Rizzoli.
"Know his folks."
"How about the rest of your customers? You know most of
them?"
"You had a look around town?"
"A quick one."
"Yeah, well, a quick one's all it takes to see Lithia. Twelve
hundred people. Nothing much to see."
Rizzoli took out Warren Hoyt's photo. It was the best they
could come up with, a two-year-old image from his driver's
license. He was looking straight at the camera, a thin-faced
man with trim hair and a strangely generic smile. Though
Dean Hobbs had already seen it, she held it out to him
anyway. "His name is Warren Hoyt."
"Yeah, I seen it. The state police showed me."
"Do you recognize him?"
"Didn't recognize him this morning. Don't recognize him
now."
"Are you sure?"

"Don't I sound sure?"
Yes, he did. He sounded like a man who never changed his
mind about anything.
Bells chimed as the door opened, and two teenage girls
walked in, summer blondes with long legs bare and tanned in
their short shorts. Dean Hobbs was momentarily distracted as
they strolled by, giggling, and wandered toward the gloomy
back end of the store.
"They sure have grown," he murmured in wonder.
"Mr. Hobbs."
"Huh?"
"If you see the man in that photo, I want you to call me
immediately." She handed him her card. "I can be reached
twenty-four hours a day. Pager or cell phone."
"Yeah, yeah."
The girls, now carrying a bag of potato chips and a six-pack
of Diet Pepsi, came back to the register. They stood in all
their braless teenage magnificence, nipples poking against
sleeveless tee shirts. Dean Hobbs was getting an eyeful, and
Rizzoli wondered if he'd already forgotten she was there.

The story of my life. Pretty girl walks in; I turn invisible.
She left the grocery store and went back to her car. Just that
short time in the sun had baked the interior, so she opened
the door and waited for the car to air out. On Lithia's main
street, nothing moved. She saw a gas station, a hardware
store, and a cafe, but no people. The heat had driven
everyone indoors, and she could hear the rattle of air
conditioners up and down the street. Even in small-town
America, no one sat outside fanning themselves anymore.
The miracle of air conditioning had made the front porch
irrelevant.
She heard the grocery store door tinkle shut and saw the
two girls stroll lazily out into the sun, the only creatures moving.
As they walked up the street, Rizzoli saw curtains flick aside in
a window. People noticed things in small towns. They certainly
noticed pretty young women.
Would they notice if one had gone missing?
She shut the car door and went back into the grocery store.
Mr. Hobbs was in the vegetable aisle, cunningly burying the
fresh lettuce heads at the back of the cooler bin, moving the
wilted heads to the front.
"Mr. Hobbs?"
He turned. "You back again?"

"Another question."
"Don't mean I have an answer."
"Do any Asian women live in this town?"
This was a question he had not anticipated, and he just
looked at her in bafflement. "What?"
"A Chinese or Japanese woman. Or maybe a Native
American."
"We got a coupla black families," he offered, as though they
might do instead.
"There's a woman who may be missing. Long black hair,
very straight, past her shoulders."
"And you say she's Oriental?"
"Or possibly Native American."
He laughed. "Hell, I don't think she's any of those."
Rizzoli's attention perked up. He had turned back to the
vegetable bin and began layering old zucchinis on top of the
fresh shipment.
"Who's she, Mr. Hobbs?"

"Not Oriental, that's for sure. Not Indian, either."
"You know her?"
"Seen her in here, once or twice. She's renting the old
Sturdee Farm for the summer. Tall girl. Not all that pretty."
Yes, he would notice that last fact.
"When was the last time you saw her?"
He turned and yelled: "Hey, Margaret!"
The door to a back room swung open and Mrs. Hobbs
came out. "What?"
"Didn't you drop off a delivery at the Sturdee place last
week?"
"Yeah."
"That gal out there look okay to you?"
"She paid me."
Rizzoli asked, "Have you seen her since, Mrs. Hobbs?"
"Haven't had a reason to."
"Where is this Sturdee Farm?"

"Out on West Fork. Last place on the road."
Rizzoli looked down as her beeper went off. "Can I use your
telephone?" she asked. "My cell phone just died."
"It's not a long-distance call, is it?"
"Boston."
He grunted and turned back to his zucchini display. "Pay
phone's outside."
Cursing under her breath, Rizzoli stalked out again into the
heat, found the pay phone, and thrust coins into the slot.
"Detective Frost."
"You just paged me."
"Rizzoli? What're you doing out in Western Mass?"
To her dismay, she realized he knew her location, thanks to
caller ID. "I took a little drive."
"You're still working the case, aren't you?"
"I'm just asking a few questions. Not a big deal."
"Shit, if--" Frost abruptly lowered his voice. "If Marquette
finds out--"

"You're not gonna tell him, are you?"
"No way. But get back in here. He's looking for you and he's
pissed."
"I've got one more place to check out here."
"Listen to me, Rizzoli. Let it go, or you'll blow whatever
chance you've still got in the unit."
"Don't you see? I've already blown it! I'm already fucked!"
Blinking away tears, she turned and stared bitterly up the
empty street, where dust blew like hot ash. "He's all I've got
now. The Surgeon. There's nothing left for me except to nail
him."
"The staties have already been out there. They came up
empty-handed."
"I know."
"So what are you doing there?"
"Asking the questions they didn't ask." She hung up.
Then she got in her car and drove off to find the black-
haired woman.

twenty-six
T  he Sturdee Farm was the only house at the end of a
long dirt road. It was an old Cape with chipping white paint
and a porch that sagged in the middle beneath a burden of
stacked firewood.
Rizzoli sat in her car for a moment, too tired to step out. And
too demoralized by what her once-promising career had
come down to: sitting alone on this dirt road, contemplating
the uselessness of walking up those steps and knocking on
that door. Talking to some bewildered woman who just

happened to have black hair. She thought of Ed Geiger,
another Boston cop who'd also parked his car on a dirt road
one day, and had decided, at the age of forty-nine, that it really
was the end of the road for him. Rizzoli had been the first
detective to arrive on the scene. While all the other cops had
stood around that car with its blood-splattered windshield,
shaking their heads and murmuring sadly about poor Ed,
Rizzoli had felt little sympathy for a cop pathetic enough to
blow his own brains out.
It's so easy, she thought, suddenly aware of the weapon on
her hip. Not her service weapon, which she'd turned over to
Marquette, but her own, from home. A gun could be your best
friend or your worst enemy. Sometimes both at once.
But she was no Ed Geiger; she was no loser who'd eat her
gun. She turned off the engine and reluctantly stepped out of
the car to do her job.
Rizzoli had lived all her life in the city, and the silence of this
place was eerie to her. She climbed the porch steps, and
every creak of the wood seemed magnified. Flies buzzed
around her head. She knocked on the door, waited. Gave the
knob an experimental twist and found it locked. She knocked
again, then called out, her voice ringing with startling
loudness: "Hello?"
By now the mosquitoes had found her. She slapped at her
face and saw a dark smear of blood on her palm. To hell with

country life; at least in the city the bloodsuckers walked on two
legs and you could see them coming.
She gave the door a few more loud knocks, slapped at a
few more mosquitoes, then gave up. No one seemed to be
home.
She circled around to the back of the house, scanning for
signs of forced entry, but all the windows were shut; all the
screens were in place. The windows were too high for an
intruder to climb through without a ladder, as the house was
built upon a raised stone foundation.
She turned from the house and surveyed the backyard.
There was an old barn and a farm pond, green with scum. A
lone mallard drifted dejectedly in the water--probably the
reject of his flock. There was no sign of any attempt at a
garden--just knee-high weeds and grass and more
mosquitoes. A lot of them.
Tire ruts led to the barn. A swath of grass had been
flattened by the recent passage of a car.
One last place to check.
She tramped along the track of squashed grass to the barn
and hesitated. She had no search warrant, but who was going
to know? She'd just take a peek to confirm there was no car
inside.

She grasped the handles and swung open the heavy doors.
Sunlight streamed in, slicing a wedge through the barn's
gloom, and motes of dust swirled in the abrupt disturbance of
air. She stood frozen, staring at the car parked inside.
It was a yellow Mercedes.
Icy sweat trickled down her face. So quiet; except for a fly
buzzing in the shadows, it was too damn quiet.
She didn't remember unsnapping her holster and reaching
for her weapon. But suddenly there it was in her hand, as she
moved toward the car. She looked in the driver's window, one
quick glance to confirm it was unoccupied. Then a second,
longer look, scanning the interior. Her gaze fell on a dark
clump lying on the front passenger seat. A wig.
Where does the hair for most black wigs come from? The
Orient.
The black-haired woman.
She remembered the hospital surveillance video on the day
Nina Peyton was killed. In none of the tapes had they spotted
Warren Hoyt arriving on Five West.
Because he walked onto the surgical ward as a woman,
and walked out as a man.

A scream.
She spun around to face the house, her heart pounding.
Cordell?
She was out of the barn like a shot, sprinting through the
knee-high grass, straight toward the back door of the house.
Locked.
Lungs heaving like bellows, she backed up, eyeing the
door, the frame. Kicking open doors had more to do with
adrenaline than muscle power. As a rookie cop and the only
female on her team, Rizzoli had been the one ordered to kick
down a suspect's door. It was a test, and the other cops
expected, perhaps even hoped, that she would fail. While they
stood waiting for her to humiliate herself, Rizzoli had focused
all her resentment, all her rage, on that door. With only two
kicks, she'd splintered it open, and charged through like the
Tasmanian Devil.
That same adrenaline was roaring through her now as she
pointed her weapon at the frame and squeezed off three
shots. She slammed her heel against the door. Wood
splintered. She kicked it again. This time it flew open and she
was through, wheeling in a crouch, gaze and weapon
simultaneously sweeping the room. A kitchen. Shades down,
but enough light to see there was no one there. Dirty dishes in
the sink. The refrigerator humming, burbling.

Is he here? Is he in the next room, waiting for me?
Christ, she should have worn a vest. But she had not
expected this.
Sweat slid between her breasts, soaking into her sports
bra. She spotted a phone on the wall. Edged toward it and
lifted the receiver off the hook. No dial tone. No chance to call
for backup.
She left it hanging and sidled to the doorway. Glanced into
the next room and saw a living room, a shabby couch, a few
chairs.
Where was Hoyt? Where?
She moved into the living room. Halfway across, she gave a
squeak of fright as her beeper vibrated. Shit. She turned it off
and continued across the living room.
In the foyer she halted, staring.
The front door hung wide open.
He's out of the house.
She stepped onto the porch. As mosquitoes whined around
her head, she scanned the front yard, looking beyond the dirt
driveway, where her car was parked, to the tall grass and the
nearby fringe of woods with its ragged edge of advancing

saplings. Too many places out there to hide. While she'd been
battering like a stupid bull at the back door, he'd slipped out
the front door and fled into the woods.
Cordell is in the house. Find her.
She stepped back into the house and hurried up the stairs.
It was hot in the upper rooms, and airless, and she was
sweating rivers as she quickly searched the three bedrooms,
the bathroom, the closets. No Cordell.
God, she was going to suffocate in here.
She went back down the stairs, and the silence of the
house made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
All at once, she knew that Cordell was dead. That what she'd
heard from the barn must have been a mortal cry, the last
sound uttered from a dying throat.
She returned to the kitchen. Through the window over the
sink, she had an unobstructed view of the barn.
He saw me walk through the grass, cross to that barn. He
saw me open those doors. He knew I'd find the Mercedes.
He knew his time was up.
So he finished it. And he ran.
The refrigerator clunked a few times and fell silent. She
heard her own heartbeat, pattering like a snare drum.

Turning, she saw the door to the cellar. The only place she
hadn't searched.
She opened the door and saw darkness gaping below. Oh
hell, she hated this, walking from the light, descending down
those steps to what she knew would be a scene of horror. She
didn't want to do it, but she knew Cordell had to be down
there.
Rizzoli reached into her pocket for the mini-Maglite. Guided
by its narrow beam, she took a step down, then another. The
air felt cooler, moister.
She smelled blood.
Something brushed across her face and she jerked back,
startled. Let out a sharp breath of relief when she realized it
was only a pull chain for a light, swinging above the stairs. She
reached up and gave the chain a tug. Nothing happened.
The penlight would have to do.
She aimed the beam at the steps again, lighting her way as
she descended, holding her weapon close to her body. After
the stifling heat upstairs, the air down here felt almost frigid,
chilling the sweat on her skin.
She reached the bottom of the stairs, her shoes landing on
packed earth. Even cooler down here, the smell of blood